Kartchner Caverns State Park, Tombstone & Bisbee AZ

SAT., FEB. 4 thru FEB. 9, 2023

We arrived at Kartchner Caverns State Park in Benson, AZ on Sat., Feb. 4th, 2023. A short hour long drive from Tucson. Lovely state park with spacious sites and surrounded by mountains! We’ll enjoy being here for 6 nights. We took advantage of the gorgeous afternoon and sat outside and enjoyed the warm temps. 

On Sunday, Feb. 5th, 2023 we met up with friends Linda & Phil at Kartchner Caverns to tour the Rotunda and Thrown Room which features the tallest column in Arizona called Kubla Khan at 58 ft. There are 2.4 miles of passages. Just beautiful and the Discovery Center is impressive! Loved it! Unfortunately no photo taking allowed in the caverns. Two cavers discovered the cave back in the mid-70s. They stayed inside for 12 hours and couldn’t believe their eyes. When they finally exited, they new they had to take steps to protect it. With support from the landowner and the governor, it quickly passed state legislature and became a state park. Then the hard work commenced to make it accessible to the public. Kartchner Caverns opened in 1999. It is special! 

After touring the caverns, we came back to our tiny home for lunch then set out on a 3-mile hike that surrounds Kartchner Caverns called Foothills Loop Trail. Turned out to be a “moderately difficult trail with sections of rough terrain” which came in the form of lots of rocks and an uphill climb. But we made it thru and adult beverages tasted even sweeter! Later I made dinner and the 4 of us played the card game “golf” with Gary beating me by 1 point! To make the day even more special for Linda, Phil, Gary & I, we were able to do a FaceTime call with dear friends Diane & Mike in Florida. A great day!

 

Monday, Feb. 6th, 2023 was our last day to spend with Linda & Phil and Tombstone was our destination! First up was the Boothill Graveyard. Established in 1878 it has been painstakingly preserved. It’s the final resting place for many outlaws with lots of interesting stories! It’s also the graveyard for several sheriffs. People leave money on the graves of the sheriffs and no one touches it because that would be really bad juju. After walking through the cemetery, we headed into town. 

Tombstone was one of the last boomtowns in the American Frontier. It had silver mines which helped grow the town in the mid-1880s but, of course, it’s best known for the “Gunfight at the OK Corral” which gets re-created several times a day at several different venues. The town is a mecca for tourists with lots of shops, museums and everybody looking to make a buck. If you visited all the shops and saw all the shows, you’d spend a fortune! We walked the streets and visited the Bird Cage Theater, which opened in 1881. It’s the original building with numerous bullet holes to prove it. We also visited the Tombstone Courthouse, built in 1883 for $43,000, now a museum and considered a state historical park. There’s even a reconstructed Gallows in the courtyard at the Courthouse. Five men died there in 1884 and two in 1900.

Finally we visited an art gallery (of course!). They were having a quilt exhibit. They gave us pencil and paper, and we were asked to pick our favorites and drop our selections into a fish bowl. We all picked different quilts.

By then it was more than time for a ‘linner’ at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. (Kate was rumored to be Doc Holliday’s girlfriend but don’t take that to the bank.) Linda & Phil had eaten here before. The restaurant was a hoot! All the bartenders and servers dress up in period costumes. 

Such a fun day but then we had to say goodbye to Linda & Phil. They are headed back to Tucson for a few days to visit family before flying home to MA on Friday. We’ll miss them but we’ll see them again in April as we have a cruise planned together to the Galápagos Islands to celebrate Gary’s 65th birthday!

 

On Tuesday we did chores. Wed., Feb. 8th, 2023, we visited the old mining town of Bisbee located 11 miles from the Mexican border. What a funky town! We were able to go underground and tour the Queen Mine. That was a first for us! They make you sign a waiver to not sue if a chunk of rock falls on you. Hmmm… should we be worried?

Ore was discovered in the surrounding Mule Mountains in 1877.  By 1905 Bisbee had the largest population in the state and mines had popped up all over. Bisbee became one of the world’s largest copper producing centers. Mules were actually down in the mines in the 1900s and transported 4 cartloads (bins) of rock at a time. They even had stables down there for them. Mining lasted for almost 100 years before the mines closed in 1975 due to declining demand.

After touring the mines and being thankful we weren’t miners back in the early 1900s, we also stopped to see “Lavender Pit Open-Copper Mine.” It’s 4,000 ft wide x 5,000 ft long by 850 ft deep at its maximum. It was named Lavender after a person… not the color. There are 300 different types of minerals found in the hills around Bisbee, thus the reason for lots of different colors in the hillsides.

We wandered around historic Bisbee with its houses built into hillsides, its narrow streets, its staircases everywhere, tons of street art, and quirky businesses… many of which were closed on a Wednesday. And we learned some interesting facts like flies were a problem in 1912 because they contributed to a terrible outbreak of typhoid fever. The town created a campaign to reward the persons who killed the most flies! I don’t think I would have wanted to live here in 1912. 

A delightful time visiting this gem of a town!

Gary & I did one more visit to Kartchner Caverns on Thursday, Feb. 9th, and did the Big Room tour. Kartchner is a living limestone cave and is considered one of the top ten in the world. Once again no photos allowed. This is a newer cave system which was opened to the public fully in 2003. All tours are fully handicapped accessible. Impressive! Once again beautiful formations to see. The Big Room is closed to the public six months out of the year because it becomes a birthing center for baby bats. 800 to 1800 bats call the Big Room home. We did see several large piles of bat guano, but surprisingly no smell. 

Tomorrow we leave this area and head into New Mexico.